lego house
by imogensrocket
Summary: Jake realized he wanted to be permanent in her life, while everything else seemed so temporary.


**Disclaimer: I don't own Degrassi.**

* * *

**Author's Note: **Random Jimogen oneshot, because my friend gave me feels, so this is dedicated to her, which when she thinks of this dedication once she's done she'll come to my room and kick my butt!

* * *

"_And out of all these things I've done, I will love you better now."_

_Lego House, _Ed Sheeran

He always tries to keep people at a distance. Getting hurt was easy for people like him, and people never knew what they were doing. Distance was his closest friend.

He was a fraud of course. For as much as he liked the concept of casual – the lack of a messy situation where no one gets attached, and therefore no one gets hurt – never works in his favor. The girls never get attached to him, but he sure as hell gets attached to them. And then he ends up screwed.

He does it to himself over and over again, yet still believes himself to be a "casual guy".

She saw right through him though.

She with her combat boots, holly buddy glasses, and pigtails who collided into his life at an unexpected time and managed to find her way in through the cracks _they _had made.

She and Eli entered his life when he was _the new guy_. As if he was some mysterious being that could never be solved.

Another façade she saw right through.

* * *

She pointed out the fact that the Eli and Clare saga was far from over one day to him as he built the sets and she studied her lines.

"_She still loves him, you know. And he still loves her."_

She didn't say it bitterly, or with any malice. She was just stating a fact. No different than talking about the weather.

Sometimes when he looks back, he believes she was warning him for the ending that was coming. An ending everyone could see, but she was the only one brave enough to admit it.

* * *

He's surprised to find that it was _her _who he had fallen for without the kissing, the touching, and the sex. All they did was talk and laugh – there was a lot of laughing when it came to him and her.

She'd ask him questions some of the time, but other times she'd take him for what he was and accept it. Every other time, he told her because he wanted too.

When they weren't talking about him, he'd tried to get her to open up too. He knew she was different, read a lot, and was creative. Everything else she hid away for her own safekeeping. She, unlike him, wasn't a fraud – though she got hurt enough that she learned what he had still yet to learn the hard way.

* * *

"I fall for a lot of people that don't like me for me," she admits to him one day when he was smoking a joint.

She never joined him, just kept him company. Sometimes it bothered him, but he'd grown accustomed to their routine.

"How?" he asks, the smoke billowing from his mouth and up, up, up, till it dissipated in the air.

She turns away from the smoke and stares at him. Her eyes, heavily framed and covered by blue eye shadow, were beautiful to him in the weirdest of ways. Her brown eyes were a beautiful shade on her, but there was something in them – brokenness.

How could something so broken look so beautiful? It was what he'd question himself every now and again, but mostly when he was alone and would think of her.

She shrugs, picking at the grass. "I have… high expectations I guess. I mean with Eli I thought," then she gave a sad sigh, shaking her head. "I don't know what I thought. He was a stupid mistake. I regret that I hurt people, and that I got hurt, but… I can't explain it."

"You can't regret the lesson you learned?" he asks, twirling the joint in his fingers.

The look she gives him: the hint of a half-smile, her eyes alighting a bit, if he weren't high he would have realized that that was the moment she fell for him.

"Yes," she says dazedly – as if seeing him for the first time.

He just inhales again.

* * *

She dates another though – one he believes is unworthy of her, even if others tell her she's the best girlfriend she's ever going to have.

The girl, the elite and rich Fiona Coyne, is good to her in ways, where others she's bad. And where she's bad is where it all counts the most.

Jake watches them sometimes. Not in a creepy way, but if he sees them, he'll stop and watch as she drags Fiona along as she uninterestedly follows like some lost, uneager dog. He hates that Fiona isn't _really _interested in her, or the things she likes. She's just there, being a _good girlfriend. _Something that's only temporary.

Jake realizes he wants to be permanent.

_He _wants to be the reason for her every laugh, her every smile. He'd give anything to be more than temporary to her.

* * *

In his jealousy he shoves her away, and she gives him grief for it. Then eventually, she doesn't bother anymore.

Either she doesn't care anymore, or believes he stopped caring.

* * *

He uses flings to get over her.

He knew of the ravine and went there for pot amongst other things, and in time, he too becomes a regular.

Three months before graduation they break it off. In the almost five months the two were together, neither of them has talked to each other unless they had to. And she made it a point to never have to.

* * *

He finds her one day at her locker. In some weird twist of fate they're both late, and he's high, but he notices she's sniffling.

She is aware someone is close and turns to face them, her face red realizing she's been caught crying in front of her locker. Until she sees it's him, and he's high.

She almost wants to scoff, but another part of her wants to ask him to let her smoke with him.

Getting high and escaping instead of history sounds appealing to her.

She steps in front of him and stares up at him. "Can we go somewhere?" she asks him calmly, and to her surprise, he nods.

* * *

They're in the woods. There isn't a PE class today, so they'll be fine.

She coughs at first, and he thumps her on the back.

"I'm surprised, Imogen," he says, though his distant-sounding voice makes her irrationally angry.

Or maybe it's a rational thing for her to feel.

She isn't quite sure anymore.

"You were always so against smoking with me," he continues, inhaling and exhaling his drag.

"I just wanted too." Is all she gives him.

She is still closed, while he is still open.

They fall back in their routine somehow. It's been months since they were last in it, but it's easy.

He gets high and tells her things, and she sits beside him and takes them in, and denies his requests to open her up.

That is until he gets the call.

* * *

It was late. Well, late for Helen's standards anyway.

He was in bed, watching something stupid when his phone vibrated against his dresser. Grabbing it, he saw it was her and answered.

"Hey –" he begins as she cuts him off.

"I need you," she says frantically. He can tell by the tone of her voice that she's barely holding it together.

"Where are you?" he asks, already standing up and grabbing his keys.

"The hospital," she says.

His heart stops. "What happened?" he asks – almost shouting it in his panicked state.

"Nothing to me," she assures, though her voice shakes and quivers and it pains him to hear. "I'm on the third floor… I –" she pauses, and he hears her swallow. "Please. I don't want to be alone."

He assures her he's on her way.

* * *

He's there for the night her father passes away, and with that, he found out all of her secrets.

* * *

They had waited out in the small, cramped room for a long time. Natalie – her mother – checked in every so often, but she was working and couldn't stay long. Something Imogen begrudged her.

"I'm disposable to her," she says as they wait on an uncomfortable couch. She's curled into his side, and he has an arm draped over her.

"I'm sure that's not true," he says.

She nods her head.

"I can't lose him," she whispers, and he can feel moisture on his shirt.

He holds her closer as he buries her face against him and cries.

* * *

Sometimes, he thinks she died along with her father.

He sees her fall apart, and he tries in vain to keep her together. She begins to smoke with him, and he can't help but remember the times when he hated when she didn't. How wrong he had been to wish that she'd join him.

* * *

She's become open, but an angry open. Like her secrets are bitter things to toss at people, instead of gifts to hand.

He tries to not dislike the new her so much and to keep in mind of what had happened.

Though it isn't that hard to forget, and when he remembers, he almost cries too.

The memory of someone telling her that there wasn't anything more they could do, Natalie signing a paper, and then her, collapsing in his arms with a pained sob escaping her lips.

Even if he is temporary to her, he knows that that night will haunt him for years and years to come.

* * *

He hates himself the night he takes her virginity. She's vulnerable and empty and wants desperately to be whole. He tries to deny her, but in the end he couldn't.

She cries at first, and he begins to pull out, when she grabs him.

"No. Please." Is all she says as she holds him, and the broken look in her eyes says it all.

He tries to pleasure her and to be gentle with her.

When they're done, he holds her as she cries.

* * *

"I got into an art school in New York," she tells him the week before graduation.

She knows he's staying behind. He is home, and she is travel. Two opposites meeting in one point and then to forever destined cross paths and meet occasionally.

He realizes he's temporary.

"That's amazing," he lies, hating himself when he hears how untrue it sounds out in the open and how fake his smile feels.

She isn't looking at him. "I'm not going," she declares.

It's what he wanted to hear. But he knows she's regret it. She needed to fly, to explore, to one day come home. To choose to be with him someday – for what he thought would be one day in the distant future (which killed him to the core), when she was ready to land for good and to have a home and to accept a home, and to stay with him for as long as they could.

Home and travel were different, but when travel was afraid to leave, home could be greedy and make it stay.

He tried so hard not to do that.

"No," he told her sharply, making her look up with hurt eyes.

It had been the wrong thing she wanted to hear, and he knew it. This was the thing she _had _to hear.

"Go," he told her, ignoring the pain marring her face. "You'll regret it."

"You don't want me?" she whispers.

She wasn't his to have.

Right now, he was temporary. No matter how much he wanted to be permanent, Imogen would always want more. And home never gave more; it only gave what it could. And she couldn't become like him. He wouldn't let her do that.

"No," he lies. "You have to go."

She doesn't say goodbye to him, or anything else.

* * *

He writes her often. Sometimes he's high; sometimes he's drunk, sometimes he's both. He sends them all, but the ones he keeps are the ones that matters. The ones he writes sober, that would make her forgive him and come home.

* * *

He's doing exactly what he expected of himself. He's living in the cabin, building things, earning his keep. What he's always done, and always intends to do. He knows he'll never be enough for her.

* * *

One day she sends him a postcard. It has a picture of some palace by the sea he's never heard of somewhere in France.

_miss you. wish you were here – even if you'd hate it. hope all is well._

_-imogen._

He reads it a dozen times more, memorizing every word, and taking in her familiar loopy handwriting.

It has been a year and a half since he's heard from her, and he's surprised she misses him.

He figures she wrote it out of guilt from all the letters he sent her. Still, he puts it away and pulls it out every now and then.

* * *

Mo tells him of her engagement one day.

She stayed in contact with Whisperhug, so Jake's heard everything she shares with Mo.

It was one of the only times he wished Mo didn't share things about her, and he's glad that Mo tries to comfort him, but at the same time he hates that he has to at all.

She's marrying some guy she traveled with to Italy on a class trip. Mo informs him that he's from New York, so she'd live there fulltime.

Jake nods, but on the inside he's laughing bitterly that it took her a short time to find home. To find someone who could be permanent.

And when he looks around the messy cabin, and thinks of who he is, and how his life is too simple, he knows it's for the best.

* * *

One fall day, when he and his dog, Moose, are out in the garage, fixing his car, he is surprised to hear a car pull into the gravel driveway.

He wasn't expecting Mo, and Glen never visits. He suspects Glen likes not having Jake around to burden him so he can focus on _Helen_.

Wiping his hands on his grease-stained jeans he sees her getting out of her car.

She's different – tanner and thinner, a bit taller, though not by much. But everything else remained the same.

He just stands there and looks at her. It's been a bit over two years since graduation, since he let her go, and she flew back to him. Or so the selfish part of him hopes.

They both stand in silence, gaping at each other until she clears her throat.

"I, uh," she tries, and then moves closer. "Hi," she says once she's closer.

"Hey," he says.

More awkward silence follows.

"I just wanted to see if you were okay," she says.

He can see the ring on her finger.

Diamonds, he decides, doesn't suit her. He knows this guy is another Fiona – he's temporary, though this time, she's trying to make him permanent.

"I'm fine," he says as Moose wanders out and barks at her. She kneels down, letting him come close, and petting him.

"I'm glad," she says, and smiles.

"So…" he says, and then gazes at her ring.

She turns red and places her hand over it. "Yeah," she clarifies for him.

"Congratulations then," he says, then gestures her to follow him. He's glad engagements are an excuse to drink, because he needs a beer.

He pulls two out and hands one to her, his brow furrowing when she declines, but drinks anyways.

Some things, he figures, never change.

"How is the fiancé?" Jake asks, trying to restrain the bitterness in his voice.

"He's good. He's home, thinking I'm telling Natalie the news." She said with a casual shrug.

He raises an eyebrow, "So have things gotten better with Natalie and you?"

"No."

"So why lie?" Jake asks curiously.

"He said to go home and tell my family, but he doesn't realize you were the only thing I considered home here. You're the only friend I still have here," she admits.

For a second, he wants to hate her. Didn't she know he loved her? _Still _loves her. That it took all he had not to shove her against the wall and kiss her until neither of them could breathe. That he wanted to be inside her again and make her whole and to hold her close to his heart as he had so many years ago.

That home would never be home without her?

But he couldn't hate her.

It didn't stop him from being pissed with her.

"Well I guess that's it then. You told me," he says bitterly, and then walks out the backdoor.

"Jake," she calls after him.

"What?" he says, rounding on her, and she stumbles back for a moment.

"Nothing," she says, shaking her head. "This was a mistake. I'm sorry."

She turns to leave and stops. "I guess this is goodbye then." It's a question, but she says it like a declaration. As if she knows they'll never meet again. Not unless it's an accident.

Jake feels himself stiffen. Saying goodbye to Imogen Moreno and set her free once and for all. He had to do it. _Needed_ to for her and himself as well. They both needed to move on.

Though all there is is a deafening silence.

"Why did you come here?" he asks her, fearing her answer, but wanting to know if his selfish suspicions were true.

"I just… Did you mean it?" she asks her voice small and vulnerable. The voice that always made him want to hold her tight to prevent her from shattering apart. "When you said you didn't want me, was it true?"

He looks at her and for an instant he almost tells her the truth.

"Yes. I meant it."

The look across her face kills him, and at her fury his comes alive to.

"Fine!" she spat at him. "I'm glad then!"

She turns on her heel and begins to storm off.

"What?" he shouts at her, easily beating her to her car and blocking the door. "Did you come here to see if you could leave your fiancé?"

He's never been so angered by her. He even feels disgust that she'd manipulate like this.

"No." She says angrily. "I just wanted to know!"

"Why?"

"Because!" she shouts, trying to get passed him, but he grabs her shoulders. "Let go of me!"

"Tell me why?" he demands, shaking her a bit.

He's so angry, he barely even cares that he's scaring her.

"Because I loved you and you threw me away!" she screams.

Everything goes silent at that, and he sees that she's cry.

"Wh –"

"I thought you loved me too," she goes on, her voice bitter and cracked. "But you never did, and I was wrong. Now I'm going home."

Home.

That word kills him to hear from her.

He is her home!

He should be her home.

But he blew it.

He tried so hard to give her what he thought he needed, that he didn't listen to what she wanted.

In the end he made himself temporary when he could have – _should _have been permanent.

"Goodbye, Jake." Imogen said, her eyes glistening. She opened the door to her car and paused before stepping in it. "I wish you luck." And with that she's gone.

And it was then that he realized, as her car drove away leaving a trail of dust in its wake, he should have told her then to stay when it was too late to say anything more.

* * *

**Author's Note: **It was going to have a happy ending where he tells her he loves her, but let's be real; Jake puts everyone he cares about first. I mean he's going to college to please Glen (which if you want to find Glen and punch him in the face because of this, come be my friend and plot misery for him with me!). And besides, cliché happy ending are so farfetched , so all us Jimogen lovers can collectively cry about how there isn't a (canon – obviously at the 10 year reunion they're endgame) happy ending for them. I guess you could say it is what it is between them.


End file.
